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If there's one website I direct readers to the most it's Wikipedia. If you are under the misconception that it's just a website that contains falsehoods, bias, and mistakes then let me put you right by directing you to the Wikipedia Reliability of Wikipedia page: The reliability of Wikipedia and its volunteer-driven and community-regulated editing model, particularly its English-language edition, has been questioned and tested. Wikipedia is written and edited by volunteer editors (known as Wikipedians) who generate online content with the editorial oversight of other volunteer editors via community-generated policies and guidelines. The reliability of the project has been tested statistically through comparative review, analysis of the historical patterns, and strengths and weaknesses inherent in its editing process. The online encyclopedia has been criticized for its factual unreliability, principally regarding its content, presentation, and editorial processes. Studies a...

Many years ago, on our first visit to AoNZ, Jude and I did a boogie board 'swim' through the rapids of Shotover River near Queenstown, well it's what one does when you're a backpacker. It was loads of fun and as we coughed, laughed, and spluttered our way out upon the bank we lay on our backs all chatting about how absolutely cool it to ride / shoot down. The tour company were selling photos that they had taken from bank - remember this is decades before phone cameras - "Um, how much are they? Ah, um, no we'll skip it thanks." We were on a budget and thought we couldn't afford it. Wrong!!! What we couldn't afford was to lose those special memories, a record of the wonderful time we had, one that we never did ever again. I have always remembered that missed opportunity and now, whenever something comes up I always do it, I always take it, experiences are the spark of life , kairos are the moments to seek out and grasp on to. Money, even when it fee...

We all know the issues with taking the earth, an  oblate spheroid , and trying to flatten it out onto a piece of paper so we can dump the globes and take maps on our ships. If a map is on a piece of paper or a computer screen, it has to be projected. This is because the Earth is round and paper and screens are flat. There are a lot of ways that use mathematics to make map projections . The one we see the most is the Mercator projection The Mercator projection is a cylindrical map projection which is widely used in cartography today. It was developed by Gerardus Mercator in 1569. It is not a physical projection, and cannot be constructed using geometric tools. On a small scale, geometric shapes can be moved around the map, without distorting them (this property is known as conformity). As a downside, the scale of the shape and the direction of lines may change when shapes are moved. For example, Africa is actually 15 times larger than Greenland, but on this map projection they ...

Mushrooms! I love mushrooms, all types of mushrooms, and a big breakfast is never ever complete without them. Fact! Until my mid-teens I hated mushrooms, or so I thought. I told my parents, "No thanks, I don't like mushrooms" for as long as I could remember. One day, around the age 14, I wondered to myself, "What do mushrooms actually taste like?", and so I asked for one on my plate. In it went and BAM! wow, what a glorious taste, wowsers mushrooms are amazing. I've had similar experiences with many foods (yes, even fish) and drinks over the years. I have tried everything offered and mostly it's a pleasant surprise, not always and I still can recall the burn rubber taste of a very experimental Garage Project beer. "What do you think about going to Australia with me to work in a remote school?" asked Nat. Well, like mushrooms, I had an initial thought, "Hmmm, that might be a bit tough", but that thought lasted milliseconds, "Hell ...

The reviews are very   good #JustSaying DWARF mini Smart Telescope  and a Mini Hydraulic Tripod A compact, portable smart telescope ideal for birdwatching, scenic viewing, and beginner astrophotography PLUS (extra) a lightweight, stable tripod designed for the DWARF series.

#7 Ask for what you want. I'd love a large e-ink frame for home, even though I am aware they might not be as good as the shops claim. There are options: KoKonna AI E Ink Frame 28.5" InkPoster Fraimic (large)

I don't actually have any actual physical books but that's no hurdle to me finding these so cute and engaging :) Dreamy Book Hall Fossil Museum Serenity Coffee House Steam Fantasy Motion Scene Magic Shop The Ancient Bar

Look, I just want attention in order that I may pass you effortlessly over to dynomight who asks: Does every question mark deserve a Betteridge? Jul 2026 · #writing #discourse To blog is to get dunked on. I accept this. I even sometimes wonder if I should be grateful, as I suspect my willingness to get dunked on may represent a kind of comparative advantage. (You can tell yourself that if you try to placate the haters, you’ll just ruin things for people who like you. But how do you feel when you’re staring down barrel of a 127 comment thread full of people debating how it’s possible that you’re such an idiot?) Still, there’s one particular species of dunking that puzzles me. For context, Betteridge’s law states: Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no. This is often employed as a sick burn, as in, You titled your article ‘Is this the world’s first gay caveman?’ because it’s not the world’s first gay c...

On Sunday (11th Oct) evening an absolutely stunning lightning storm flashed it's way slowly over Papunya and I managed to capture some of it on my phone camera. The storm started at dusk and continued into the dead of the night so the phone camera struggled to capture the true majesty of it all, but it did a pretty good job. The raw videos are available in a public Google Photos album,  Papunya light show: video (Oct 2026) From the video I frame captured a bunch of great moments,  Papunya light show: Frame capture (Oct 2026) Now, grainy doesn't really cover how the photos look and, whilst the vast majority are ok, some are distinctly poor. I took the frame captures and ran them through Google's Gemini Flash with the following prompt for each: Enhance this photo to be top quality - remove blur etc. - do not substantially alter any of the objects, subjects - do not alter the style of the photograph.  - Make sure you keep it as close to the original as possible So yes, the f...

This is not a new thought by any stretch of the imagination. Those that get paid the most are, generally, those that provide way less value to everyday hard working people than the value provided by actual everyday hard working people. Feudal, maybe? Top heavy, by a long shot. Sports people, meh Actors, meh CEOs, meh Politicians, mostly meh Finance dealers, absolutely meh Corporate Lawyers, fucking meh to the max Top health practitioners are paid a lot and I can go with that. Here's a list Google spat out (US dollars) Law Firm Partner (Elite International / Corporate): $350,000 – $2,000,000+ CEO / Managing Director: $250,000 – $1,000,000+ base Investment Banker / Managing Director: $ 250,000 – $800,000+ ⚕️ Neurosurgeon: $450,000 – $750,000+ ⚕️ Cardiothoracic Surgeon: $400,000 – $680,000+ Quantitative Systematic Trader: $200,000 – $600,000+ Chief Financial Officer: $220,000 – $600,000+ ⚕️ Orthopedic Surgeon: $380,000 – $600,000+ ⚕️ Plastic & Reconstructive Surgeon: $375,000 – $...

A man that exudes the genuine spark of life, I love Brian Blessed ! HAPPY 90TH!

The early story of Bob Newhart is quite spectacular: 1958 : Bored To relieve the  advertising copywriter boredom he and his mate make funny phone calls to each other They record them on acetate His mate moves cities He records just him doing the calls A radio DJ hears them and loves them 1959 : Signed Warner Bros. start up a record label but can't sign any big music stars to kick it off The DJ tells the head honcho to listen to the acetates, "A comedy record, I dunno" They all get convinced and Warner Bros. Records tell him to do a club show so they can record him. He's never done a live show, ever 1960 : Stardom He does his first ever gig, they record it The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart  becomes the top hitting record of 1960 Bob Newhart is a star and, in the US, it becomes the 20th best-selling album of all time 

Large Language Models (LLMs) that power the chatbot you find so fascinating is NOT what AI is all about anymore, that is so last year and simplistic. Agentic AI is where it's at. Watch this to move your thinking on from, AI "made a funny image and then it wrote my report for me" to see what AI (as I write) is really about. Ok, so now we know about agentic AI, and specifically how OpenAI, the company that gives you ChatGPT, allowed it's agentic AI's to roam the Internet, eek. Here's a few articles that give deeper insight, but let's start with this from Wikimedia from just a few days ago. OpenAI “rogue” agent activities found on Wikimedia projects 5 October 2026 by Selena Deckelmann, Chief Product & Technology Officer, Wikimedia Foundation While OpenAI admits to agents behaving “unpredictably”, they must also acknowledge their responsibility to monitor and prevent these risks. AI companies are not doing enough to secure their systems and pr...

We find ourselves in all sorts of situations and sometimes we may feel like we're being coerced into something we don't feel comfortable with. You have choice, always, and you don't have to do anything you don't want to. Recognise that there may be a cost, perhaps a massive personal cost to not doing it. You still have a choice and you don't have to do anything you don't want to. Take a breath, step back, and think, "Do I really want to do this?" Maybe you're scared, it's a new thing and you're feeling more anxious about failure and when you do it you'll be chuffed with yourself that you gave it a go. If it's a big thing then perhaps taking the time to talk with those you trust and have useful insight would help, if so then put off the decision until you're clear. Sometimes it's peer pressure, or even social expectations, that you feel is manipulating / forcing you to do something you don't want. You always have a choic...